Text+Suggestions+for+Year+13+Novels

The texts listed below are considered to be of literary merit and suitable for study at NCEA Level 3 and level 8 of the curriculum because they allow the students to respond critically:


 * **Text Title** || **Text Author** || **Comment** ||
 * The God of Small Things || Arundati Roy ||  ||
 * Once Were Warriors || Alan Duff ||  ||
 * Not Without my Daughter || Betty Mahmoudy ||  ||
 * Mister Pip || Lloyd Jones || Teaching guide available ||
 * The Road || Cormack McCarthy || We used The Road for level 3 written text last year with two clsses success. The students found the style interesting and grappled with the characters. Many of them hadn't read anything post-apocalyptic so it was an eye-opener.i think, in some ways, they enjoyed studying what they percieved to be an 'adult book'. We are moving it to our year 12 extension programme this year as an experiment. ||
 * 5 People You Meet In Heaven || Mitch Absolom || We used this successfully at Yr 12 - not enough for Yr13?? ||
 * School Days || Tobias Wolfe ||  ||
 * Angela's Ashes || Frank McCourt ||  ||
 * Atonement || Ian McEwan ||  ||
 * The Comfort Of Strangers || Ian McEwan ||  ||
 * Enduring Love || Ian McEwan ||  ||
 * Purple Hibiscus || Chimananda ||  ||
 * My Fine Lady || Yolanda Joe ||  ||
 * The New Girl || Emily Perkins || Experience of the three girls and their riends awaiting their exam results after year 13 in a stifling small town summer - (plenty of interesting male characters, too) beautifully written ||
 * The Bell Jar || Sylvia Plath || Sylvia Plath in the Bell Jar unless you are nervous about suicide issues. students i hvae used it with in the past thought it was the best approach! fabulous language. famously insightful ||
 * Kindred || Octavia Butler ||  ||
 * The Handmaid's Tale || Margaret Attwood ||  ||
 * The Driftwood Seekers || D & D Bradley || a really great challenging NZ text. I did it with extension year 13 and they achieved very well with it. Lots of symbolism strong themes and characters. Intersting shifting narrative viewpoint and use of flashback/flashforward that gradually becomes clear. ||
 * 1984 || George Orwell ||  ||
 * The Knife of Never Letting Go || Patrick Ness || It's a gritty and unusual book, with plenty of scope for exploring racism, sexism, power, manipulation, and language. ||
 * You Against Me ||  || You against me is the 2011 Tomorrow When the War Began. But better. The writing is exceptional. The content challenging without the need for censorship. ||
 * Never Let Me Go || Kazuo Ishiguro ||  ||
 * A Long Way Gone || Ishmael Beah || We a trying A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. We thought it might appeal to the boys. Then doing related texts on war, conflict and peace. ||
 * A Clockwork Orange || Antony Burgess ||  ||
 * A Dangerous Vine || Barbara Ewing ||  ||
 * A Farewell to Arms || Ernest Hemingway ||  ||
 * A Gathering of Old Men || Ernest Gaines ||  ||
 * A Handmaid’s Tale || Margaret Atwood ||  ||
 * A Map of the World || Jane Hamilton ||  ||
 * A Room With A View || E M Forster ||  ||
 * A Thousand Splendid Suns || Khaled Hosseini ||  ||
 * As I Lay Dying || William Faulkner ||  ||
 * Beatrice and Virgil || Yann Martel ||  ||
 * Birdsong || Sebastian Faulks ||  ||
 * Black Swan Green || David Mitchell ||  ||
 * Blindsight || Maurice Gee ||  ||
 * Brave New World || Aldous Huxley ||  ||
 * Briar Rose || Jane Yolen ||  ||
 * Cat’s Eye || Margaret Atwood ||  ||
 * Cloudstreet || Tim Winton ||  ||
 * Cold Mountain || Charles Frazier ||  ||
 * Cry The Beloved Country || Alan Paton ||  ||
 * Emma || Jane Austen ||  ||
 * Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close || Jonathan Sarfan Foer ||  ||
 * Fight Club || Chuck Palahniuk ||  ||
 * Fugitive Pieces || Annie Michaels ||  ||
 * Gallagher Girls || Ally Carter ||  ||
 * Genesis || Bernard Beckett ||  ||
 * How To Stop a Heart From Beating || Danielle Ballantyne ||  ||
 * In My Father’s Den ||^  ||   ||
 * Islands of Silence || Martin Booth ||  ||
 * Jane Eyre || Charlotte Bronte ||  ||
 * Maestro || Peter Goldsworthy ||  ||
 * Mrs Dalloway ||^  ||   ||
 * No Country For Old Men ||^  ||   ||
 * One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest || Ken Kesey ||  ||
 * Owls Do Cry || Janet Frame ||  ||
 * Perfume || Patrick Suskind ||  ||
 * Persuasion || Jane Austen ||  ||
 * Potiki || Patricia Grace ||  ||
 * Pride and Prejudice || Jane Austen ||  ||
 * Room || Emma Donoghue ||  ||
 * Satisfied With Nothing ||^  ||   ||
 * Sense and Sensibility ||^  ||   ||
 * Shades of Grey || Jasper Fforde ||  ||
 * Slaughterhouse 5 || Kurt Vonnegut ||  ||
 * Small Island || Andrea Levy ||  ||
 * Snow Falling on Cedars || David Gutterson ||  ||
 * Sula ||^  ||   ||
 * Surrender ||^  ||   ||
 * Talking About O’Dwyer ||^  ||   ||
 * Tess of the D’Urbervilles || Thomas Hardy ||  ||
 * The Book Thief ||^  ||   ||
 * The Color Purple ||^  ||   ||
 * The Five People You Meet in Heaven ||^  ||   ||
 * The Grass is Singing || Doris Lessing ||  ||
 * The Great Gatsby || F Scott Fitzgerald ||  ||
 * The Kite Runner || Khaled Hosseini ||  ||
 * The Last Ride || Thomas Eidson ||  ||
 * The Lovely Bones || Alice Sebold ||  ||
 * The Messengers || Marcus Zusak ||  ||
 * The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint || Brady Udall ||  ||
 * The Poisonwood Bible || Barbara Kingsolver ||  ||
 * The Power and the Glory || Graham Greene ||  ||
 * The Outsider || Albert Camus ||  ||
 * The Reader || Bernhard Schlink ||  ||
 * The Shipping News || Annie Proulx ||  ||
 * The Things They Carried || Tim O’Brien ||  ||
 * The Wall || Jean Paul Satre ||  ||
 * Things Fall Apart || Chinua Achebe ||  ||
 * Triage || Scott Anderson ||  ||
 * Whanau II || Witi Ihimaera ||  ||
 * What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? || Alan Duff ||  ||
 * Wide Sargasso Sea || Jean Rhys ||  ||
 * Wintergirls || Laurie Lalse Anderson ||  ||
 * Wuthering Heights || Emily Bronte ||  ||

Back to Text Suggestions